Sunday, January 31, 2010

Those of us who felt that the first priority of the Obama administration should have been to investigate and prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration were told by other progressives that we were unrealistic and that Obama had to forego such things because Republican cooperation was necessary for Obama to advance his progressive agenda. That doesn't seem to be working out.

Nevertheless, as eloquent and intelligent as Obama obviously is, he is also not the leader we elected him to be, and Democrats are in dire need of a strong, principled and progressive leader. I don't know what it will take to develop a party with some backbone, but it needs a jumpstart, and soon. Though I really don't know if the progressive movement can recover from this setback:

In sum, there is clearly a bipartisan and institutional craving for a revival (more accurately: ongoing preservation) of the core premise of Bush/Cheney radicalism: that because we're "at war" with Terrorists, our standard precepts of justice and due process do not apply and, indeed, must be violated. To relieve ourselves of guilt and of the bad lingering taste left from having such discredited and unpopular leadership for eight years, we collectively pretended for a little while to regret the excesses of the Bush/Cheney approach to such matters. But it's now crystal clear that the country, especially its ruling elite, is either too petrified of Terrorism and/or too enamored of the powers which that fear enables to accept any real changes from the policies that were supposedly such a profound violation "of our values." One can only marvel at the consensus outrage generated by the mere notion that we charge people with crimes and give them trials if we want to lock them in a cage for life. Indeed, what was once the most basic and defining American principle -- the State must charge someone with a crime and give them a fair trial in order to imprison them -- has been magically transformed into Leftist extremism.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I don't think I can bring myself to watch the SOTU in real time tonight, but I might engage in something I call the "preemptive drinking game" in which I drink according to what I anticipate the talking points are going to be. On that basis, I might be passed out before the speech even begins.

UPDATE: I feel like Cuba Gooding Jr: SHOW ME THE MONEY!

UPDATE 2: Apparently, Alito made an ass of himself during last night's event. What a surprise. Thanks George W. Bush!

Oh please. I had a bet with a co-worker about whether or not the new Apple device would be called the "I-Slate" or the "I-Pad" and I lost, though we both agreed that "I-Slate" was the better name. Let's just say that I'm a woman past a certain age for whom the word "pad" has a connotation not normally associated with technical devices.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Monday, January 25, 2010

A former co-worker sent me this account, written by her husband, and it was sent as an email attachment, so I wasn't able to figure out how to link to it. So, here it is, with permission from the writer, and when I can figure out how to add the pictures, I will:

Dear All, I would like to start out with how touched I was by your short-notice support and advice in the hours leading up to my departure this past Sunday. I am equally proud and glad to be part of this caring and supportive medical community! Although I don't want to single out anyone I have to mention Dr. Elleda Ziemer who went above and beyond what I was asking for, by individually marking and packaging all medications to the smallest size possible. In addition she correctly assumed I would have a tough time with any meds other than Ancef and Vicodin and provided us with a neatly typed-up cheat sheet!! Many, many thanks to all of you! During my first day back at work I have had many questions asked concerning our experience and in order to return to move on to productive activity and more pleasant thoughts, I would like to give you a general account of what we saw and of the current conditions rather than reiterate snap-shot stories repeatedly in the hallway. I would sincerely like to emphasize that this is ONLY about the people of Haiti, who are victim to horrendous circumstances on an epic scale. I feel media coverage so far has been very superficial and sensational and would like for you to contemplate the implications down the road and future efforts needed...more on this towards the end. The broad overview: I cannot think of a comparable humanitarian tragedy in recent history and no reiteration or images will do justice to what we experienced. This earthquake has not only claimed a minimum of 50-100 times as many lives as Hurricane Katrina but much more importantly, it has left double this number of severely injured and crippled human beings in an environment without any infrastructure. The only secured points in town are the airport and the US embassy, newspaper and TV reports are obtained in close proximity to these places and do not mirror the horrendous conditions truly at hand. The Haitian government is non-functional, the military is securing its footprint and big relief organizations are amassing goods at the airport without the slightest clue of how to disperse these goods to the people in need. The main prison was severely damaged and approx. 4000 criminals have escaped. Water transports and equipment get hijacked only blocks away from the airport by gangs and the only unimpaired way to transport water to the communities is at this point through children with backpacks! A few of you have voiced desire and interest to help in person and at this point I would strongly discourage these plans unless this is done through military or US government affiliated organizations with a reliable exit plan. The city is still not secure, private transportation has come to a halt since military operations has gained control of air-traffic. 90-95% of patients would have required early and immediate orthopaedic trauma care within the first 24-48 hours, this window has long passed and the resources required to avert the natural history of these severe injuries are not present or accessible for this incredible volume of patients. There is ample ground personnel and help organizations present, however distribution of supplies and overall concerted coordination of these efforts remain the core problem. Not much has changed since Katrina. Unfortunately, just going there in hope to "just help and do something" will not alleviate the current situation. I have added this more detailed account of my impressions: the first-response effort I participated in was headed by Dr. David Helfet at Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. He left with a crew of 12, consisting of 2 highly-skilled anaesthesiologists, 4 Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeons/Fellows, 2 scrub nurses, 1 general trauma surgeon, one nurse practitioner for triage and 2 implant representatives/OR techs on a corporate jet owned and volunteered by an orthopaedic implant company on Friday afternoon and was initially diverted to the Dominican Republic. They were able to land on second attempt Saturday and went to evaluate the Port-au-Prince General Hospital which proved incapacitated without safe OR facilities, energy or running water. The team went on to find the "Hopital de la Communaute Haitienne" located in a severely damaged hillside community with intact generators, light and running water. Two OR's were available with non-functional anaesthesia machines. Patient intubation/ventilation was not possible, therefore limiting anaesthesia to regional blocks and iv sedation. The autoclave was the size of a cigar-box. Xray in the OR, ultrasound, ekg monitors, blood transfusions, labs or intensive care were not available. We had one electrocautery unit for the hospital and no PACU monitors. Approximately 700 patients were awaiting evaluation and triage by an international mix of nurses, ER physicians and community volunteers which all arrived in stages. Spine, pelvis and head injuries were treated conservatively d/t lack of diagnostics - sink or swim! The team started treatment of the most critically injured patients with attempts of limb salvage wherever possible by Saturday night. Together with another Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon and 4500lbs of equipment I was able to join this team by Sunday afternoon. We were able to land without problems but found utter chaos at the airport with most reliable guidance provided by local volunteers for the "Partners in Health" organization. The remnants of Haiti's governance with their families were escorted onto military planes by U.S. Special Forces and flown out of the country right in front of our eyes! All of our equipment except a box of saw blades was loaded onto a truck and directed to our final destination. This truck, sadly, was hijacked on its way and is to this day not accounted for. We reached the hospital by private transportation and immediately took over for the 2 teams which had been operating for 20 hrs straight at that point. Daytime security was provided by 3 Jamaican soldiers with automatic weapons stationed outside the OR, these troops returned to their base at dusk. 75% of all patients presenting to the hospital presented with open, unreduced and severely comminuted fractures/dislocations with soft tissue crush injuries, which had been exposed to the environment for a minimum of 4 days at that point and were (sometimes) immobilized with cardboard or wood planks. Primary intramedullary fixation without Xray was not feasible, peel-pack military external fixators were applied where possible. Advanced infection, necrotizing fasciitis, rhabdomyolysis and compartment syndrome however were most common forms of presentation and an increasing percentage of patients underwent primary amputation as time from injury increased. The thought of amputating a young girl's arm for relatively simple wrist fractures seems impossible in this day and age... Children and pregnant women were prioritized in the triage process. On the second day our team was able to equip a third room for minor procedures and the 3 surgical teams performed close to 100 procedures (25% with multi-extremity involvement) within a 60-hour period, which was interrupted by two 2-3hr rest periods while the hospital's generators were shut down for maintenance during the early morning hours. The patients and their families were incredibly appreciative and thankful for our presence, despite their obvious pain, exhaustion and devastation and the drastic and life-altering procedures we had to perform.

Our goal was to work at high intensity until Tuesday 8 PM with a scheduled departure time at 11 PM with exchange for a fresh team from HSS. By Monday at noon we were able to clear hallways around the OR and a sense of "catching up" was present. By Monday night the hospital was literally flooded with a second wave of patients sicker than any of the previously treated, after news had spread that patients were actually treated at our facility. This necessitated lockdown of all hospital entry points with understandable discontent of the many who were denied access. By Tuesday morning it became evident that many previously treated patients required repeat irrigations and debridements and that many of the new patients were actively septic and/or in multi-organ failure with systemic inflammatory response syndrome. The hospital's sanitary system failed around this time. 6AM Tuesday morning we received notice that our plane was no longer allowed to land due to massive military personnel reinforcements. These news really put a severe dent into the team's morale and spirit as well as our exit plan. Meanwhile, the face of US medicine, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, performed a single, fortunately successful, neurosurgical procedure onboard the US Comfort, which, 6 days after the earthquake, was still over a day away from its final destination! And we still had not seen a single US soldier in over 3 days, despite multiple requests for nighttime security backup with US authorities. We were unable to keep up our surgical volume because the postoperative patients could no longer be moved to the overflowing PACU. At this point the first patients started to succumb to their injuries in the hallway while waiting for surgery. The next possible landing time for our plane was set for this coming Friday evening and the team decided at this point that we were not able to maintain care at this pace and keep up with the constant influx of severe traumas with the available resources and without nighttime protection. Water and food was also not available in sufficient quantity to sustain till Friday. We decided to look into alternative exit strategies via the Dominican Republic with an emphasis on daytime travel. By noon, private transportation was organized by our local contacts and the entire 13-man group incl. gear left for the airport in the back of a single pick-up truck. Our last procedure was assistance with a C-section and intubation of a baby which was not breathing on initial evaluation - both child and mother were stable. I cannot describe the deflation of hope and loss of faith in our patients' eyes when they essentially saw the entire team walk from the OR to the door, these images and feelings of guilt and abandonment will stay with me forever. We fortunately were protected by the group of Jamaican soldiers during our backdoor exit from the hospital.

A French team arrived just prior to our departure and was able to fill our spot. An Orthopaedic surgery team from St. Thomas and a general/ob-gyn surgeon from Jamaica remain with an US-trained Orthopaedic Surgeon, who has committed to a long-term effort at this hospital and has kept our remaining equipment. We were lucky enough to gain access to the tarmac without encountering the masses lined up outside the airport. A Canadian military pilot was kind enough to help us to get on the passenger list of a plane headed to Montreal ,where we were able to transfer to our original jet early Wednesday morning. What remains is the desire to highlight the dire need for coordinated action on the ground and a change of approach in future natural disasters of this magnitude - since hurricane Katrina we have not improved at all!! Concerning future efforts: Some of you have kindly volunteered financial help on Saturday which I gratefully declined prior to my departure since I did not think money would be able to accomplish much at this point. However, now that I have gained a general idea of the problems the people of Haiti will face, I would like to set up a foundation and hopefully set up a surgical follow-up program to improve the lives of a select group of survivors. We were told by many, that amputees have no access to prosthetic limbs or wheelchairs and are essentially taken care of by their family members until they succumb with secondary complications. The November 2009 issue of Time magazine highlighted and praised development and design of the "Jaipur Knee" as one of 2009's best 50 inventions. A functional prosthesis manufactured from sustainable and affordable materials for the cost of 20 dollars, assembled and built within hours! (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934027_1934003_1933963,00.html)

If you have specific knowledge on the business side of charitable institutions, I would like to ask for your help in setting up a foundation for the future mass of Haiti's amputees. I would also like to encourage your donations at this point, while the shocking images are still present and before the mass media shifts its attention back to the Superbowl! I promise full return of all donations in case we should be unable to launch this project. Along with delivery of prosthetic devices, I will be looking for a once or twice-a-year "travel team" consisting of a prosthetist for fitting and customizing these prostheses, an anaethesiologist well versed in regional anaesthesia along with scrub nurses and OR techs in order to perform post-traumatic reconstructive procedures for osteomyelitis and non-/malunions. The Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) has recognized the long-term need for these services and will coordinate dispatch of these volunteer teams. Credentialing through HHS will be required, I will keep you posted on specifics if there is enough interest.

I hope you will find this information useful and informative and invite your participation in future efforts! Along these lines, feel free to pass this on to anyone interested and contact me with any questions and/or advice at: traumaflo.haiti@yahoo.com. Kindest regards, Florian.

Friday, January 22, 2010

So tonight I'm going to forget about The State Of The Union and go listen to some blues. My ex's band is opening for Guitar Shorty at Sam's Burger Joint in San Antonio, and I plan to enjoy myself! Here's a sample of tonight's main attraction:

I haven't been over to Obsidian Wings much since Hilzoy left, so I'm a few days late in finding this which should definitely be read, and then read again. Then go read Greenwald. Oh, go on. It's not like you're going to get more depressed.

I knew, when Obama cast his FISA vote before the '08 election, that he wasn't the progressive leader I would wish for. But I admit to being shocked at just how bad he is. This loss in Massachusetts and subsequent meltdown by congressional Democrats is just the humiliating culmination of what we have seen coming since at least last summer. I think this post nails the problem as well as it can be done.

Eight years of extraordinary abuses by the Bush administration has left our country in ruin and we are in dire need of strong, principled leadership to set us back on track. We're not getting it - and yesterday's SCOTUS ruling handing control of the government over to corporations is going to make it much harder, if not impossible, to find. We're in trouble.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

UPDATE: I was totally unprepared for how this would affect me, and maybe it was just the last straw on top of what has been a horrible week, but I cried like I did when I lost my Buddy over a year ago. TBogg knows that his readers love those beautiful bassets like they are our own. Rest in peace, Beckham, you beautiful, sweet, lovely boy. To the TBogg family: I'm so, so sorry.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

This video shows the winner of "Ukraine's Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.

The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about $130,000.00

She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated..

It is replaced by a woman's face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman's face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.

Kseniya Simonova says:

"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there's surely no bigger compliment."

Well, I know I said I didn't care, but that didn't seem to stop me from going online every 5 minutes (it seemed) yesterday to check on the election outcome in Mass. Yeah well, damn. This has been a tough year, and I would say that, after last night, I feel almost as bad as I did on the morning after George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004. Almost. Here's Barbara O'Brien:

I would say this message isn’t just for President Obama, but all Democrats in Washington. The Democratic Party needs to realize that the foot-dragging of people like Max Baucus (who held hcr up in his finance committee for many long weeks, thereby delaying its passage), Ben Nelson, and Evan Bayh is devastating to the long-term prospects of the Democratic Party. These guys may be doing what they need to do to win re-election in very conservative states, but in doing so they are killing the Dems’ chance to re-brand itself as a party that can actually do something useful.

The Dems had a small window of opportunity to prove that it really does matter which party one votes for, and that most folks are better off with them, and they blew it.

CW appears to dictate that the message the Democratic leadership will take from this embarrassment is that they need to move more to the right. Oh yes, THAT'S the Change we were Hoping for! Indeedy! You know, one of the things I liked about Obama is that he ran a smart campaign, and one of the major Changes I was Hoping for was a leadership with intelligence. Do all Democrats just check their brains at the door once they get to Washington???? WTF?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I don't know what's going to happen in Massachusettes and, frankly, I'm finding it real hard to care. I suspect that a lot of progressive voters in Massachusettes are feeling the same way which is why they're having this problem in the first place.

We are already being bombarded with gasbag assessment of What Happened And Why and much long-winded advice about what Democrats should do now. But from where I sit the answer is obvious: Not nearly enough attention has been paid to this.

For eight years our country was ruled by an administration that was utterly contemptuous of the rule of law and had absolutely no guiding principal other than pure, unfettered greed. The people primarily responsible for our current economic crisis have not only not been held accountable for their malfeasance, they've been rewarded with huge bonuses, and the same is true for those that planned and implemented a war based on outright lies, and which included a torture regime as despicable as that of any two-bit third world dictator. A war which is directly responsible not only for the deaths of thousands of our own soldiers and civilians, but for the deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. We will spend many decades attempting to recover from the damage that the Iraq war has done. When I see George W. Bush strutting around pretending to be pals with Bill Clinton and acting as if he has anything whatsoever of value to add to anything, I want to throw up.

As usual, Digby and Greenwald have said what needs to be said about Horton's report. Here's Greenwald:

Incidents like this dramatically underscore what can only be called the grotesque immorality of the "Look Forward, Not Backwards" consensus which our political class -- led by the President -- has embraced. During the Bush years, the United States government committed some of the most egregious crimes a government can commit. They plainly violated domestic law, international law, and multiple treaties to which the U.S. has long been a party. Despite that, not only has President Obama insisted that these crimes not be prosecuted, and not only has his Justice Department made clear that -- at most -- they will pursue a handful of low-level scapegoats, but far worse, the Obama administration has used every weapon it possesses to keep these crimes concealed, prevent any accountability for them, and even venerated them as important "state secrets," thus actively preserving the architecture of lawlessness and torture that gave rise to these crimes in the first place.

Every Obama-justifying excuse for Looking Forward, Not Backwards has been exposed as a sham (recall, for instance, the claim that we couldn't prosecute Bush war crimes because it would ruin bipartisanship and Republicans wouldn't support health care reform). But even if those excuses had been had been factually accurate, it wouldn't have mattered. There are no legitimate excuses for averting one's eyes from crimes of this magnitude and permitting them to go unexamined and unpunished. The real reason why "Looking Forward, Not Backwards" is so attractive to our political and media elites is precisely because they don't want to face what they enabled and supported. They want to continue to believe that it just involved the quick and necessary waterboarding of three detainees and a few slaps to a handful of the Worst of the Worst. Only a refusal to "Look Backwards" will enable the lies they have been telling (to the world and to themselves) to be sustained. But as Horton's story illustrates, there are real victims and genuine American criminals -- many of them -- and anyone who wants to keep that concealed and protected is, by definition, complicit in those crimes, not only the ones that were committed in the past, but similar ones that almost certainly, as a result of Not Looking Backwards, will be committed in the future.

The people who turned out in droves in November of '08 to elect Barack Obama did so in large part in response to his message of Hope and Change. In one short year, hopes have been dashed and the most important changes have simply not been forthcoming. I don't regret voting for him - he was, after all, the only alternative to McCain/Palin and there's no doubt that that would have been infinitely worse. But Obama has made some critical errors this first year in failing to lead aggressively against the egregious and lawless abuses of the former administration, and his failure is costing us all.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Horrible, horrible devastation of one of the poorest countries in the world, and I'm surrounded by wingnuts who are bitching about sending aid. "Did any countries come to OUR aid after 9/11?" one asked. Well, as a matter of fact, yes. And yes, I sent her the link and she shut up. Meanwhile, for those who do not think of "compassion" as a dirty word, Feministe has a good compendium.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I suppose this is January doldrums. I just don't seem to have much to say about anything that's going on. It all seems just so same old, same old. Ah well, FWIW, here's a scattershot of what passes for thought from me these days (don't say you weren't warned)....

This morning, a friend of mine who works in Austin told me that her company is not only giving her Monday off for MLK day, they are ALSO giving her Tuesday off for "Confederate Heroes Day". Assholes. Why don't they just call it "Ku Klux Klan Day" and be out in the open about it?

It really is interesting what shows up on BBC News as opposed to US cable news. For example, this. Apparently there are democracies in other parts of the world that believe in holding their elected officials accountable for illegal wars. What a concept!

Friday, January 8, 2010

I was never much of an Elvis fan, but one can't deny his influence and appeal. I mean really, his movies were Ed Wood-level bad, yet throngs were willing to lay their money down just to see and hear him. Such is American pop culture. One of the better ones, IMHO:

It' cooooold down here in South Texas. Yeah, I know, not as cold as it is in other parts of the country, but still a hell of a lot colder than we're used to. "Global Warming" - Hah! Clearly a hoax! As with everything, it's good news for Republicans.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

UPDATE: Compare and contrast this deranged, pants-wetting reaction from TexasFred (and you must understand that I refer to him so often because I'm afraid he is horrifyingly representative of an all-too-sizable contingent of our population) to Paul's resounding sanity and even Mr. Shrill himself, Greenwald.

Here's Fred (emphasis mine):

Let me take a guess here, just a shot in the dark. This meeting will be all about how to pass the blame, hide any links to failure and see if it’s at all possible to blame this on George W. Bush.

EPIC FAIL Mr. Obama, that’s what you have here, and it’s quite likely just the tip of the iceberg. And it’s going to be a HUGE iceberg. One that can GUT American security if we don’t get a grip on it right now.

Here’s a suggestion for Barack Hussein Obama and his band of moonbat minions, if you want to get a grip on this situation you’re going to have to do something that Bush didn’t do.

SHOCK and AWE needs to be more than just a slogan. Decimate ANY nation, any group of people that try to hurt the USA. Decimate them, wipe them and their seed from the face of this earth.

Forget political correctness, forget offending the enemy, fight like Americans can, and are more than willing to do. I spoke these words many times during the Bush administration and they fell on deaf ears. You can’t fight a war and not hurt some feelings.

And a personal bit of advice to Barack Hussein Obama, you’ve got to forget that you’re a Muslim, you’ve got to be an American and you’ve got to make war most heinous on the Islamic hordes.

There are only a few things that Islamic warriors respect and understand. Great, powerful and totally overwhelming war is one of the things they understand! You make war on them in a fashion that is designed to bring about as many casualties as possible. You hit them hard, you hit them with everything you have. And when you’re done, hit them one more time just for good measure.

Good God. Can you say "issues" or perhaps, "Issues"? Does anyone doubt the adolescent mentality that drives these attitudes, or fail to recognize that this is exactly the level of childish idiocy that ran our country for the last 8 years? How in the world do we begin to recover from the damage that these assholes have wrought? I don't know, but I can't believe that we can do it by adopting most of their policies or by "looking forward, not back".